


Family

by mortenavida



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-compliant Death, Gen, Immortal Tony Stark, No Dialogue, Tony is not Iron Man, it's Howard and Maria, sorry Tony, yet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 10:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21269489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortenavida/pseuds/mortenavida
Summary: “Do you have a family, Stark?”Tony looked up at the older man, studying the depressed acceptance in his eyes, and didn’t know how to answer. Did he have a family?Tony looks back on how and when he met his family.





	Family

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Marvel Bang! I did this to challenge myself to write a fic entirely with no dialogue (except for the first and last sentences; so the dialogue is like the bookends) and I think I pulled it off well. Origins for Tony’s meeting the people included are not all canon and I’ve adjusted wherever I wanted.
> 
> Thank you to my beta [coldwinterrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldwinterrose) for not only being excited for this, but for combing it through. Without her, Obidiah Stane would be forever known as "Stand."
> 
> The ABSOLUTELY AMAZING art pieces are from the very talented Mercia. You can find more on [tumblr](http://artmercia.tumblr.com) and [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/mercia.art/). DO IT! There are _seven_ wonderful pieces and they're all embedded as well as linked to at the bottom. This was so much fun working together!

“Do you have a family, Stark?”

Tony looked up at the older man, studying the depressed acceptance in his eyes, and didn’t know how to answer. Did he have a family?

*****

If you told Tony Stark that one day he would be putting his mother in the ground, he would have laughed and simply ignored the ignorant asshole who said it. His mother, his beautiful Maria Carbonell, was untouchable. The secret of the Carbonell bloodline meant she was naturally immune to illness and aging; she never looked a day over thirty despite being nearly three-hundred. Howard Stark wasn’t her first husband, and Tony wasn’t her first child, even if both would be her last.

Her eldest, Maximilian, and the twins, Nichol and Lucien, all came to stand beside Tony at her funeral. They helped ground him as the sun bled through the trees and reflected off the freshly fallen snow around them. As far as the four of them knew, this had never happened to someone in their family. Not that they could locate the others to ask -- the older ones were too secretive to stay in contact.

But a Carbonell didn’t just _die_ in a car crash. It was impossible to hurt them that badly, or so they thought. Tony could remember sitting on his mother’s knee as she put a band-aid over a cut that would heal shortly after, her soft voice explaining how he had to hide their abilities. It was a blessing and a curse, she had said. Living past all the people you ever loved, knowing that friendships would be fleeting.

Immortality wasn’t something Tony liked to think about, but that was what she made it seem like during their private conversations away from Howard. Tony had even asked if they ever die and even she couldn’t think of a time when a Carbonell could be injured enough to pass onto the afterlife. Knowing that made Tony, and his brothers, wonder if there was something more going on. Something they would look into in the future, for sure, because it could potentially be used as an attack on their family.

That was something for another day. Research was the twins’ forte, so Tony would leave it to them. He threw in the first bit of dirt over her coffin as the truth of the matter slid through his bones -- it _was_ possible to die after all. The proof was in the body he had to identify. The proof was in the coffin disappearing under the soil.

His brothers squeezed his shoulder, one by one, before leaving with a small promise to let him know if they find anything. But as per the rest of the Carbonells, he hadn’t seen his half-siblings until years later when it was obvious their mother’s death was nothing more than a fluke.

*****

Howard Stark had never loved Tony. Not really in the sense that a father should love his son, anyway. He loved the idea of an heir, someone to take over both the company and his genius, but didn’t want any part in raising a child. Maria did what she could, but her role in this new society meant that she couldn’t be there all the time for Tony either. The wife of a billionaire meant charity functions and hiring nannies to do the child-rearing. Tony forgave his mother, for she always did her best to make it up to him with her private lessons on the Carbonell family. 

He never forgave his father.

His mother chose well for who would look out for him, however. When his parents were away, Edwin Jarvis and his wife Anna ran the Stark mansion. Tony loved getting on the breakfast stool in the mornings, a fresh plate of eggs and bacon waiting for him next to a glass of juice. Jarvis would putter about the kitchen while putting together either his lunch for school or preparing for future meals of the day. On the stool next to him, Anna sat and told him stories of his Aunt Peggy, who he never got to see. She would relay tales of what her husband and his aunt would get into before they all settled down to begin their calmer life. Before SHIELD was formed and Peggy started her own family.

Tony lived for the mornings with them. Mornings which meant that he wouldn’t have to see his father for the rest of the day. Anna was like a second mother, and Jarvis the only father figure in his life that he cared for. They were with him for every accomplishment, every award that he hung on the wall in his room. They were there for his first heartbreak and his third black-eye. Every Christmas and every birthday. The death of his parents. They were there.

They had been his only family before Stane took them from him.

*****

Despite the man thinking otherwise, Tony knew exactly what Obadiah Stane was up to after his father’s death. Howard may have been just a little in love with his balding business partner, which left him blind to some of the double-dealings that were going on within Stark Industries, but Stane had been nothing but passively nice to Tony. The smile the man tried to feed him made Tony’s skin crawl no matter his age and he always held a distrust toward the older man.

Stane was involved with so many illegal dealings Tony was surprised he hadn’t been caught before. Missing shipments that were easily explained away as technical errors that would get some poor pencil-pusher fired. A house and collection of antiques that Stane definitely couldn’t have afforded without supplemental income. The fact that the man’s computer was triple-encrypted and something automatically tried to counter-hack when Tony went searching in it.

Nothing added up, so Tony had gone to Howard shortly before he died. Wanting to be sure his father believed him, Tony had even created a presentation where he would reveal each and every bit of evidence against the current CFO.

Howard’s biting sarcasm on how Tony had done such a _good job_ was enough for Tony to stop his presentation halfway and ask if his father even believed him. That was the last time Tony spoke to Howard while the man was alive, not caring to attach himself to someone who had no care to where his weapons were going. Who his weapons killed.

The bastard had died before Tony could do anything else and, since he wasn’t yet twenty-one, Stane stepped in to handle the company. He played the doting step-father just as easily as he played the grieving friend; every time a hand landed on his shoulder in comfort, Tony wanted to hurl.

He did hurl a few times before he recognized the symptoms of poison and that’s all he needed to discover to know he had to step back for now. Especially when Stane sent Jarvis away, claiming he had only been contracted to Howard and not the family as a whole. That Tony was old enough to not need a constant nanny around to hold his hand. Stane stood beside him, hand tight on Tony’s shoulder, as Jarvis and Anna drove away, never to return.

Tony had no power without the backing of the company and their lawyers behind him. Stane controlled them all now with bland promises to hand it over as soon as Tony became of age. However, he constantly left Tony out of important information. He would insist that he told Tony about a meeting before, or he had too much to do to revisit information just for the sake of one person. Tony knew what was going on, how Stane was attempting to shut him out.

No, the man was not his family, was never going to be his family, but Tony had to pretend to survive. He had to wait until the right moment to strike. So he sucked up his anger, pulled in his fear, and kept on with his life while he planned on how to get rid of Stane.

*****

MIT had been thrilled to receive Tony as a student at such a young age. Tony, on the other hand, would have wanted anything besides walking through the campus, feeling alone and small. Most students ignored him, but the ones who stared always got to him. The whispers about who he was and questions about just how intelligent he could actually be. Tony kept his head down, books close to his chest, and worked on building his first robot.

There had always been one person who watched him more than anyone else. Before his parents’ death, Tony figured that the darker teenager was planning on using him to get to Howard -- plenty of bolder students had tried cozying up to him to do so before they realized he wouldn’t budge on the matter. They would come up to him in the middle of class or in the cafeteria, asking if he could pass their name along to the elder Stark.

But Tony was a Carbonell before he was a Stark, always, and a Carbonell never let another use their talents or position for their own personal gain. He would let them ramble on about their qualifications and what they wanted to do with their life, and then he would stare until they went away. Soon, they learned that he wouldn’t do anything for them and people eventually stopped approaching him. All but the most determined. 

MIT was a lonely time while his parents walked the Earth.

The school had given him a small reprieve to take care of family business after they died. Tony only took half the time they gave him and when he returned to the campus, everyone seemed to be staring, whispering behind his back about how _sad_ it was. Nobody approached anymore with requests. Nobody tried to fake needing homework help as a way in. Tony just had a false friend in Stane and his own loneliness to keep him company.

That and the one student who wouldn’t stop following him. Tony gave it two weeks before he had enough and exploded, demanding to know what he wanted from him. It was as if a dam had broken, though, and suddenly Tony couldn’t stop. He took out all of his anger and frustration from the past few weeks on the poor, unsuspecting older teen. 

Arms came around Tony’s shoulders and he was pressed against a strong chest. He buried his face in the sweatshirt the guy had been wearing and let himself cry for the first time since Stane called to tell him what happened. Those strong arms held him despite the chill creeping into the air as the sun dipped low. They held him even as other students walked by with curious looks, whispers on their tongues. 

They held him all through the night as Tony slept on the stranger’s bed, curled into that safe embrace. In the morning, the stranger became Rhodey and Tony felt a strength he had almost forgotten about flow through him. He had a friend, an ally, that regularly showed him that he didn’t want Tony for his last name. Rhodey genuinely just wanted to be his friend.

Rhodey was family, another brother to add to the three he already had.

*****

Getting the company out from Stane’s hands hadn’t been easy. Tony barely got the reigns at twenty-one, took control of the board at twenty-two, and had Stane arrested by twenty-three. The entire time, he had to fight against the media accusing him of being too young, and his own employees continuing to defer to Stane on issues that weren’t his business anymore. In the end, it hadn’t even been Tony that got the man arrested, but a new-hire pencil-pusher in accounting.

Virginia Potts somehow had made it up to Tony’s personal office. Maybe because his current secretary didn’t like him, but it was probably because she was feisty and didn’t take “no” for an answer. Either way, she ended up on the other side of his desk, a stack of papers in hand, and solid proof that Stane had been laundering the money he insisted was always missing because of an error. Proof that Tony hadn’t been able to hack through the computers to get; he felt stupid that he never bothered to check the physical accounting numbers.

They talked most of the night, well past when the usual cleaning crews came in to clear out the trash. Her sharp wit and no-nonsense attitude had Tony smiling before they were even halfway through the evidence. She had been happy that he had already known something was wrong. They had decided to act normal, brought the evidence to the correct authorities, and Tony got to witness Stane getting arrested during a full board meeting.

The tides turned in his favor and he had Virginia to thank for it. He had immediately offered her a position as his personal assistant and she accepted under the conditions that he call her by a nickname she had. From that day on, the two of them helped grow the company from the tatters Stane had it in to the best weapons developer in the world.

But she was always more than a personal assistant. She had become his confidant, his best friend since Rhodey was off becoming a flyboy for the Air Force. They shared meals and she told him about her family back in California. It was for her that he had a new facility built near Malibu, and it was her that helped him decorate his new beach-side home.

Pepper was family, a sister the Carbonells did not have before.

*****

Having one friend in the world got lonely, especially with Stane still around and causing trouble. Tony had tried to get back in contact with Jarvis and Anna, but the couple hadn’t been doing well enough for any sort of conversation. They both passed just after Tony took over the company, leaving a hole in his heart he knew he couldn’t fill. As his mother said, his relationships would be fleeting; Tony knew that the hole was just going to get bigger.

Grief was something Tony knew he had to get used to, but he also wanted to ignore it. The best way to ignore it was to get lost in a project, one that he could work on without being asked when it would be weaponized or sold to the masses. It was a night Rhodey couldn’t make their weekly phone call when Tony’s loneliness gave him the idea.

If he couldn’t have his friend stay with him forever, then he would just _build_ a friend that could live just as long as he would. A friend that could talk to him, perhaps even follow him around the house on especially lonely nights. And why couldn’t he do it? He was Tony Stark, after all.

Dum-E had only been intended as a test. The rudimentary bot only had one arm and a basic AI system -- just proof that it could be done on a larger scale. But something about the bot’s personality tugged at Tony’s heart and instead of scrapping the machine, he nurtured it, teaching it a few things to help around the lab.

When Pepper came into his life, he was already halfway through building Butterfingers. He played with the idea of abandoning the project, but the delight in her eyes when she interacted with Dum-E changed his mind. Soon after Butterfingers came You and a small bot that Pepper kept in his office. She liked to make sure the small bot reminded him of important meetings he couldn’t miss by constantly running into his desk.

Something had been missing and it wasn’t until Stane had been arrested that Tony realized what it was. Sure, the bots he built were helpful in their own way, but none of them _talked_ to him. The thought of making a voice come out of any of them frankly terrified him (he _had_ seen Terminator, thank you). So he needed something not scary, but something he could talk with.

It took Tony three years to perfect his AI and to incorporate it into his house. Pepper knew he had been working on it, but even she was shocked when it spoke to her for the first time. When _JARVIS_ spoke to her. He may have told her it stood for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, but she didn’t need to know the true origins. Not yet.

For now, though, Tony had his beloved father back.

*****

People hired to make sure Tony got from one place to another, whether drivers or chauffeurs, were unreliable. Either they talked too much on the drive over or they let too many people get close as he walked into a building. None of them worked out and Tony was tired of seeing a new face every other week. Something permanent had to happen, and fast.

Pepper, as usual, saved the day. She had still been new to her position, but it didn’t take her long to realize what the issue was and come up with a solution. She introduced him to an old high school friend of hers and claimed that he wouldn’t be as incompetent as the others. Harold Hogan was a washed-out boxer who had never won a match; Tony doubted his safety with the man and almost wanted to call Rhodey and offer him a ridiculous amount of money to quit the Air Force.

Harold Call-Me-Happy Hogan proved his worth well enough. Except for the initial greeting, he never talked while in the car. The mini bar was always kept stocked and the temperature in the car never got too hot or too cold. It took three days before Tony made him his permanent driver, a task that Happy took to without any complaint or issue.

He gained the role of bodyguard when they were at lunch one afternoon. A new burger place had opened and Tony wanted to try it with both Pepper and Happy. The three sat together, laughing about old high school stories. Then everything went wrong. A car hadn’t been able to stop in time and burst through the front windows.

Before Tony could wrap his mind around what was happening, Happy had kicked Tony’s chair back so he fell out of the way, inches from the car’s tires that ended up right where he had been sitting. Next to him on the ground was Happy, Pepper on top of him in his arms; he had pulled her across the table and out of the way of the runaway car. They were safe. 

If Happy wasn’t absolutely enamored with Pepper, Tony would have kissed him. He held back, simply adding him to the shortlist of people that he trusted with his life. People he considered family.

*****

The first time Tony got to see just how his Carbonell blood actually helped him, he was cornered in a hotel lobby by some crazed Russian named Vanko with some kind of electric whips in his hands. The whips split furniture in half easily and burned straight through his favorite Armani suit when the stinging cords wrapped around his arm. Tony had let out a hiss of pain at the time, but when SHIELD landed on the scene and the madman dragged away, there was no burn. Witness statements were all over the place and no one managed to get video, so Tony had been able to easily explain away the lack of injury by claiming he had just been lucky. The whips were not calibrated properly enough to do damage.

SHIELD assigned him a guard anyway, claiming Happy wasn’t enough. Tony wasn’t sure what an archer was supposed to do for him, but Clint Barton came with a smile and good enough video game skills that he gave Tony a run for his money. He taught Happy some defense skills, was an absolute gentleman to Pepper, and could drink Rhodey under the table when he came by. Less than a week and Tony didn’t mind having the agent in his house, eating his food and leaving his pants all over the place.

When Vanko broke out of whatever prison SHIELD had him in, the threat to Tony’s life was high. Fury made him stay home with Clint, so Tony did what he had been planning to do ever since Pepper came into his office the first time -- he handed her the company. She could run it better than him anyway. Her new position even came with her very own personal assistant, a redhead named Natalie that he was forbidden from seducing. He and Clint had many discussions about her pert ass, though.

The next time Vanko attacked, they were more prepared. Whiplash, as the media dubbed him, had found his electric whips again, but Clint managed to short out whatever powered them with an arrow. Before he could get close enough to take down the man himself, Natalie came running out, full SHIELD gear, and used her incredible thighs to wrap around Vanko’s head to take him down. Tony vowed never to let her know just how often he talked about her ass.

Natalie wasn’t actually Natalie, but the infamous Black Widow. Natasha Romanoff. SHIELD spy. And a dirty _liar_. Tony accepted Clint’s apology for not telling him -- he was afraid of the red-head just as much and wouldn’t try to give away her secrets. But Nat-whatever could have admitted she was from SHIELD. It wasn’t as if Tony had an issue with the agency (well, not before this at least). While Clint looked upset at the lie, she simply stood there with her arms crossed, daring him to disagree.

He didn’t trust Natasha, but Clint was family. While the archer felt like a little brother, Tony knew that there was something different, something more, with him.

*****

Tony trusted SHIELD about as far as he could throw them and Clint knew that. So when the archer let Tony know he should probably check into their recent files, he didn’t question and had JARVIS look for anything that could be of interest. Finding what Clint had been wanting him to see what easy, believing it was another matter.

Confirming that Captain America had indeed been found took a trip to SHIELD and a threat to expose some not-so-nice secrets Fury kept hidden. Once Tony saw how they planned on waking Steve Rogers up from his seven-decade nap, he shook his head and took matters into his own hands. There was no way Rogers would trust any of them if his first memory of the future was a lie. At least Clint thanked him for the improved quiver after everything was said and done. It was the least Tony could do for the tip.

Steve Rogers woke about a week later in a normal hospital bed with beeping monitors and a well-paid nurse sworn to silence by his bedside. Tony had gotten the alert that the supersoldier was awake and showed up not long after the nurse was finished with her tests that confirmed he was healthy. Well, initial tests -- there were still others to be run to see how the ice affected him.

Tony eased him into the future as best he could, but it was still obvious Steve was mourning the loss of, well, _everything_. So Tony didn’t try to force him to be happy, he didn’t try to force him to do anything. He simply offered to be there for whatever he needed. Sometimes that was a friend to talk to about the changes, and other times it was simply a silent benefactor of information.

At first it wasn’t much, but soon Steve started to ask questions. How to work his phone and computer, how to get information fast -- even how to sign up to take college classes. Two months after Steve woke up, Tony had him signed up for an online general education degree and a promise to help him pick out a major later. Art was a hobby, not something Steve wanted to make a living off of.

Surprisingly, teaching kids was at the top of his list of possibilities. Tony made sure to help tailor his classes toward that goal.

Having the supersoldier in his house wasn’t always easy. They pushed each others buttons more often than not. Steve thought Tony should stop sleeping around so much, and Tony though Steve should go out and make new friends besides people at the local shops he frequented. Steve didn’t understand why Tony took apart the appliances so much, and Tony thought Steve should stop bringing up what Howard would do in varying situations.

At the end of the day, though, Tony knew he could count on Steve for whatever he needed. And when the call came out that SHIELD needed Steve back as Captain America to stop Loki, Steve insisted that Tony come along to help. SHIELD was already calling him in to help find the Tesseract, but Tony’s chest warmed at the thought that Steve wouldn’t go back into the field without him.

The fact that Steve even stood up for him around Fury was a bonus. It was something Tony would never forget, even when the scepter had them arguing with another over ridiculous things.

Steve was different. Steve was hard-headed and pushed Tony more than he anticipated. But Steve was still family in the end.

*****

The Loki Situation (as Tony liked to call it) made a lot of people panic on the helicarrier. He stood off to the side with Steve, watching as agents ran around the main room, calling out percentages and random code words that Tony didn’t feel like figuring out. Instead, he leaned over and muttered stupid things into Steve’s ear, watching as the man tried not to smile at the remarks.

It was a distraction for both of them. Loki had taken Clint -- that was unacceptable.

Agent Coulson stood next to them and went on about trading cards and how much of a fanboy he was. Steve was clearly uncomfortable, but Tony was too amused by Coulson’s nerves. Thankfully for Steve, the conversation didn’t last that long -- soon enough, he had been called to get Loki from where he crawled out.

Tony didn’t stick around to watch that fight. Instead, he went to the lab Fury lent him, spending most of his time just staring out the window into the openness. His equipment hadn’t taken too long to set up and he left enough room for the other scientist they claimed was coming. Not that he wanted to -- it was his lab now, damnit. But he would play nice for now.

The scientist ended up being the famous Bruce Banner. He was not who Tony expected, but he was thrilled all the same. He read enough of the man’s work to know that Bruce was probably one of the only ones who could keep up with him and he was excited to get started. Steve didn’t appreciate how he spoke to Bruce about the Hulk, but Tony didn’t care -- he recognized how Bruce stood apart from the others. The man was afraid, worried that people only wanted him here to smash things.

Tony wanted to make it obvious he was after the man’s brain, not brawn.

At least until New York was under attack. From their earlier conversation, he figured Bruce would find the team after falling off the helicarrier and he wanted nothing more than to go down and meet him. But since he had no powers, Steve dropped him off at the mansion and he was stuck there, reading off info for the team about what they were up against. At least they had Clint back, and a new man named Thor, brother of Loki.

The battle had been hard, but they had eventually won with Thor’s help. And once Loki was back in Asgard and the clean-up underway, Tony approached Bruce with the offer of a home in his mansion. It took a tour and the promise of a Hulk-proof room, but the man eventually agreed, and the two never looked back.

Tony had never felt more comfortable with another person, not even Pepper or Rhodey. Bruce accepted him easily and it didn’t take long for Steve to start bringing them both food when they spent too long in the lab. For Steve to drag the two of them to bed when they got too involved in their work. And on some nights, Bruce would make them dinner, recipes from somewhere he had hidden away in his mind.

It was with Bruce that Tony realized that he had a new family, one that he had been growing since meeting Rhodey. And it was Bruce that became another brother.

*****

Thor arrived after Stugartt, looking like a kicked puppy, with Steve and a newly captured Loki. He told his story easily enough -- thought Loki was dead, his brother had an army, his brother was adopted. None of it really mattered in the end because even he didn’t know how to stop him. They didn’t have the resources or the tech to do it.

But Thor was ready to fight Loki to keep the peace, which was more than anybody expected. After Loki escaped, it was Thor who rallied them together to go to New York. It was Thor who asked for Steve to lead them and for Tony to help them from the shadows.

And it was Thor who flew out to meet a nuclear bomb that the World Council sent because Tony couldn’t hack it fast enough. Thor pushed it up through the small portal Loki made before dropping back down and telling Natasha to close it. It was Thor who later approached them with his theory that Loki had not been in his right mind, that there was something behind it all.

He would take Loki back to Asgard and try to see what --or who-- was in his mind. Thor reassured the team that he would get back to Earth as soon as he could to give them an update. Tony had appreciated the thought, but also requested that Loki never come again. Thor just gave him a smile before disappearing with both Loki and the Tesseract.

Thor wasn’t family, not with the infrequency that he showed up on Earth, but Tony was always going to welcome the god with open arms. That was close enough.

*****

Warnings, that’s all his older brothers gave him. There had never been any phone calls or letters to ask about his health or how he was handling fighting aliens. No, their first meeting since their mother died was warnings about how nobody could find out their family secret. Threats on what would happen if he told. Hints about what they found in regards to ways to hurt him, to kill him.

All in all, Tony didn’t like visits from his so-called blood relatives.

Nichol came first, finding his way into Tony’s rebuilt penthouse as if he lived there. Nobody else was around for once and Tony let out a sigh, not sure if he was thankful or irritated that they were alone. Nichol hadn’t aged a day, though his style of clothes thankfully changed. Long gone were the weird hippie pants and flower shirts -- he had plain jeans and a leather jacket instead. Several bottles of Tony’s liquor were in front of him and he held a glass half full in one hand.

Tony couldn’t even get a word in. Before he could open his mouth, Nichol listed all the reasons why Tony shouldn’t allow any of the Avengers into the mansion to visit, must less to stay. Bruce’s anger issues, Natasha’s inability to trust them, Clint’s habit of sneaking around, and Steve’s general curiosity of the future. One of them could find out. Thor could question if he were an alien. They might experiment on him or send him on suicide missions.

The only thing Tony wanted to do was to tell Nichol to go fuck himself, but his brother barely stopped to breathe, let alone allow Tony to get a word in. It took a bit after Nichol left for Tony to even realize he was alone again and he scowled at his reflection in the windows. He couldn’t say what he wanted to say in person, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t in a letter. Nichol was in the area, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find where he was.

JARVIS worked on it immediately while Tony drafted his letter, determined to prove the older twin wrong. He could hide the secret in the open. How hard could it be?

*****

When the disaster regarding the Mandarin started, Tony couldn’t figure out why he was being targeted. In his mansion lived some of the most powerful people in the world, yet the ridiculous excuse for a villain name called _him_ out. Him alone. When Happy had been hurt in California, Tony immediately boarded a plane to make sure his friend was okay. Steve and Natasha insisted on coming with him for protection and Tony had been too pissed off to argue.

The two of them ended up saving his life. He made the stupid comment on the television declaring the location of his Malibu home, daring the Mandarin to meet him at his front door. Tony wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but three helicopters with missiles wasn’t it. Steve took out two of them with his shield, but the third one collapsed the house almost on top of them. Natasha’s quick thinking got not only the three of them out, but the woman who showed up at his front door -- Maya Hansen.

Maya, who warned him just who the Mandarin was and what he wanted. It all made sense; the meeting where he had been mostly drunk since it was New Year’s Eve. Following Maya upstairs to talk science and fuck. Telling a mentally unstable man in the elevator to meet him in a place Tony had no plans on going. The Mandarin wasn’t after him for his skills, he was after Tony for a slight that happened years ago.

Part of him was proud for pissing someone off that bad. The other part of him recognized that as long as he was targeted, so was his family. One phone call had Bruce and Clint on their way to hide Pepper, while Rhodey insisted he wasn’t going to just sit by and wait. He got his own contacts together to make sure the military was ready at a moment’s notice.

Natasha found the Miami location just in time for the group of them and a team of military to crash a taping party of the Mandarin’s newest threat. To their surprise, the Mandarin wasn’t the old man they saw on the television, but a younger businessman. Killian (because what kind of villain didn’t have a weird name) fought back, but Maya had warned them what he could do with fire. Tony watched as they froze the bastard and carted him away to some secret prison SHIELD had for people like this.

Tony walked away with healing cuts and a new scientist for his company; Maya flew out the next morning to be briefed on just how far her original research into Extremis would go. Tony saw potential -- not in the fire squad Killian created, but with the ways it could really help sick people of the world. She just had to perfect it past what he had done that one drunken night.

It was in the quinjet on the way back to New York that changed everything. Steve had passed out, his body healing the cuts and bruises he got. He had been ahead of them, so it made sense that he would need to recover and they left him to it. But it wasn’t Steve that changed anything. It was Natasha.

Natasha who looked at every place Tony remembered getting cut. Who finally rested her eyes on Tony’s own. Natasha who just nodded and claimed she always knew it. Tony felt stripped naked sitting next to her, remembering Nichol’s warning, but she said nothing more. She said nothing more even months after they landed, with Tony constantly waiting for her to say something. To reveal his secret.

She never did.

Natasha became family, his confidant, from that moment and there was nothing Tony wanted to change about it. 

*****

Tony never agreed with Steve letting SHIELD use him as they wanted, but there was no changing the man’s mind after Loki. So Tony watched him go on missions, made sure he had the best equipment, and then had JARVIS hack into the comms so he could listen. And something fishy was going on with the boat that Steve and Natasha were sent to. When he got back, Steve agreed, but didn’t want to go into it. He promised to keep an eye out, but Tony didn’t trust that he would. Not really.

There hadn’t been time to warn Steve of what Tony found deep in SHIELD’s database before the word came out that Fury had been killed. Then Steve didn’t come home and Tony knew he had to do something; he couldn’t just sit back and watch through codes and screens.

Maria Hill answered after his fifth call and gave him the address to meet her. It didn’t even surprise him that Fury was recovering from the gunshot wound when he arrived in the bunker. Instead of talking to the man, Tony sat down and pulled open his laptop to wait. He knew Steve would be here eventually.

Hill arrived with Natasha, Steve, and some other guy behind her. He stayed where he was, watching as they realized Fury hadn’t died by the hands of the infamous Winter Soldier. Hydra’s best assassin for the past few decades. Steve then sat next to Tony and it took one look for him to know the weight the soldier was feeling. Tony simply leaned forward to pat his arm before turning his laptop, showing Steve the Hydra files he hacked.

He knew everything, and now Steve didn’t have the burden of being the one to tell Tony his best friend had killed Howard and Maria Stark. And if the Winter Soldier was able to kill a Carbonell, then Hydra knew what they were. They knew what Tony was. Bringing down the empire was now job number one before they went after the rest of them.

He sent off another letter to Nichol as a warning, trusting that he would tell the others.

Bringing down Hydra could potentially help bring in the Winter Soldier. Steve relaxed at the confirmation that they would help rescue his brainwashed best friend, but he still looked troubled. Tony hadn’t ever been in his situation, but he could understand -- if his mother turned up alive after all these years he would want to go after her, too. But they had a job to do first, and three helicarriers to take down.

Tony stayed behind in the bunker, as it should protect him if they failed. There was no time to get Pepper and Rhodey with him, so Tony insisted that they fix this so he wouldn’t need to worry over them. He insisted that Sam (the new guy) and Steve come back victorious. There was no other choice, nothing else that Tony would accept. With one last hug to Steve, who was in his old uniform, stolen from a museum since he was currently a wanted man, Tony let them go.

Fury left to confront Pierce without so much as a goodbye. Tony could do nothing but tap his fingers against the table and wait. Then, as Natasha released SHIELD’s secrets, Tony filtered them so it was only Hydra’s dirty secrets flooding the world. Nothing on himself or the other Avengers would get out, that he was sure of. He kept the Winter Soldier files to himself as well; they would need it for any legal battles faced in the future. 

Steve falling wasn’t supposed to happen, but he did. The Soldier fell after him, but Tony’s heart was in his throat as he had to watch his friend fall painfully to the water below. Thankfully the Soldier deposited him on a nearby shore; Tony had a medical team out immediately. The job was done, Hydra was taken care of for now. Tony needed to go.

The Soldier met him on the way to the hospital, Steve’s shield in his hand. They stared at another for a long time before the Soldier simply held out the shield. Tony took it with a thanks, and then impulsively said he had a room for him at the mansion. Whenever the Soldier wanted, whenever _Barnes_ wanted, it would be open. Nobody would bother him, nobody would demand things of him.

A small, almost forced smile was the only answer Tony got before the Soldier disappeared. Tony looked down at the water-soaked shield and couldn’t help but relax just a bit. That wasn’t the action of an assassin, that was the action of a confused man. A man who knew there was something more than what he was told. Tony could work with that.

If Bucky was Steve’s family, then he would be Tony’s too. JARVIS could berate him later about taking in strays; they just needed to find the Soldier first.

*****

Loki’s scepter showed up on the Avenger’s radar about a year after the fall of SHIELD. Thor came back to Earth to help them, having heard from Heimdall (the all-seeing) about their quest. Sam joined them since their last lead on the Soldier ended up a dead end and he wanted something meaningful to do, something that would actually help.

Tony stayed in the quinjet with the computer systems, letting the team know what he could see from there. The security of the base made him sure that the scepter was here -- what else would they hide here? But he couldn’t get in to see the systems until the shields went down. He passed that information along to Sam, giving him instructions to where the weak point was.

That was about when things went crazy. Clint went down from a speedster, Hulk took off in another direction, and Sam was shot down. Tony cursed, opening the back door so Thor could fly Clint inside, and barked orders toward Steve. There was definitely something here and he was close to breaking the security now that the shields were down.

Steve had found a hidden door and, sure enough, Loki’s scepter was inside. He mentioned a few other Chitauri items (including a Leviathan) before his voice trailed off. Tony couldn’t get him to respond, so he sent Thor back out to collect their leader. Natasha was chasing down Hulk, and Sam limping his way back now that they got what they needed.

It felt like hours, but it was only minutes before Steve’s panting breath came over the comms. Thor found him quickly, Natasha got to Bruce, and everybody piled back into the jet. Tony wanted to check over every single one of them, but he held back the urge; they needed to get back to New York to get Clint and Sam the help they needed from the wounds.

Tony wanted desperately to look at the scepter, but he knew better than to mess with it. Thor already told them he was taking it back to Asgard where it would be safe. Something about an Infinity Stone and power that Tony didn’t bother to pay attention to. What mattered now was he get his people healed up and ready to go in Hydra came after them for the theft.

When Clint and Sam finally went off with the doc and Bruce was mostly recovered from his time as the Hulk, Tony went to his lab with the scepter and casually put it on display. JARVIS, the good AI he was, immediately scanned it so Tony could look at the results later, see what he could make of it. After all, the tesseract technically gave him the large reactor he installed at both California and New York facilities. What could this new technology potentially give him?

Steve found his way into the lab not long after, a sketchbook in hand. Tony couldn’t help but smile, relaxing as the Captain got settled. He didn’t like to be watched before the team came into his life, but now Tony appreciated any kind of company while he was working. Even if it was the quiet kind Steve offered. There didn’t need to be words between them, not now.

Bruce joined them, eyes on the scepter as it glowed in the room. He questioned whether or not it was smart having it here, but Tony waved him off. Thor hadn’t come to collect it, so it had to be okay. Right? At least until Thor took it off-world with him the following morning. Tony was sure the god would have left sooner, but he could never say no to a good party.

Tony threw the best parties.

He had invited a group of vets and Steve relaxed immediately with the old men and their war stories. Rhodey and Pepper even showed up to mingle around the various people there. Some of Rhodey’s fly-buddies cornered Sam to discuss his wings, and Bruce even got to mingle with a few scientists Tony found hidden around the world.

Clint found a copy of Rock Band from somewhere and started up a game in the corner, though nobody seemed to mind the loud music and bad singing the people around him created. Tony even managed to get in a few bars of a Queen song before he was laughing too hard to continue. 

By the end of the night, it was just the team and Hill sitting together, laughing and joking about who could lift Thor’s hammer. They all promised to try, except for Natasha who insisted she didn’t need that answer. Clint was about to stand up and try when the lights flickered in the room. That wasn’t something that should happen, so Tony called for JARVIS.

Silence. He didn’t answer and the team went into battle mode immediately. Hill and Natasha already had guns in their hands while Steve backed to where his shield was stored. Tony made a note to create a way for him to call it to him during times like this. Sam’s wings were down, but he easily took the gun that was handed to him.

Tony realized, right then, that he never planned for an attack at the mansion. Another note made, this time to install hidden weapons caches, and he headed to the lab. The only good thing about a team of people like this was they never dropped their comms, so Tony could hear their soft conversation and call outs to which area of the mansion was clear.

They asked about the lab, but Tony couldn’t tell them. Because as soon as he stepped inside, his mind froze. The room went dark and all he could see was a devastated area, fires burning low in the background. It didn’t look any way familiar, but Tony knew that he was standing where the mansion once stood. All around him were the dead bodies of his teammates. Thor’s hammer lay shattered, Cap’s shield in pieces, and all of their bodies twisted in ways they shouldn’t be.

Bile rose in his throat and he struggled to breathe at the devastation around them. Then, a croak from Steve’s body. Tony crawled toward the man on his hands and knees, clasping their hands together tightly as he made it close. Blood ran from the supersoldier’s mouth and his accusing eyes landed on Tony’s own. Without saying a word, Tony knew -- this was his fault. He couldn’t save them, he couldn’t _do_ anything for them. He hadn’t made the equipment strong enough or durable enough.

His fault, his fault, _his fault_.

Tony shuttered and wrapped his arms around his legs, a broken sob the only sound echoing in the room. The coolness of the floor told him he was back in his lab, but Tony was afraid to open his eyes. Would Steve still be there? Would Natasha still be impaled? Would Clint have half his body burned? Would the Hulk be broken, _beaten_, on the other side of the room with Thor by his side?

The roar of the Hulk snapped Tony’s head up. It was just him, sitting alone in the lab, and the comms were silent. He took in a shaky breath before asking if anyone was up; Clint was the only one to answer. There were two enhanced people in the mansion that didn’t belong -- the speedster that took him down before, and a witch of some kind. Clint had seen her powers go into Natasha’s head, so he figured she was implanting something.

Nightmares, Tony knew.

He rebooted JARVIS and easily found where the two were. The witch would be harder to get under control, so Tony went for the speedster. He seemed to be going after Steve, who was shaking himself out of whatever the witch had done to him. Tony led Steve toward a series of rooms and, once the speedster followed, Tony had JARVIS trap him in one.

The witch screamed, but she was soon met with the full force of the team (save Tony, who stayed shaking in the lab, and Bruce, who was currently wrecking the back garden). She spouted out some nonsense about killing Tony, about her parents dying, and Tony had JARVIS doing whatever he could to look into this woman. She didn’t give much more information, but he found it either way.

Hulk was far too close to finishing breaking the backyard, so he asked Natasha to do her thing with Thor as backup. They agreed only when Tony arrived to greet the witch. Tony wasn’t exactly sure what to do, but he had to do something. She and her speedster brother thought Tony was responsible for their parents’ death in Sokovia. Another place his weapons ended up because of Stane.

So Tony told her the truth. JARVIS helpfully pulled up holograms on the walls as Tony went through his story. Obidiah’s betrayal, his deeds of selling Tony’s things to people who shouldn’t have them. Then Tony apologized, taking the blame himself since he should have seen it happening. He should have seen it sooner. So while he didn’t fire the missile, or sell that particular missile, it was still his fault. Her hands had lowered at that, so Tony unlocked the door to let the speedster out.

The twins, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, stared at Tony with confused eyes. Tony then apologized for whatever they had to go through to get into his house and asked them where they got their abilities. Pietro didn’t seem to want to divulge, but Wanda simply tilted her head and told him after a moment. Hydra. The scepter. Experimentation where they were the only survivors. Driven by their want for revenge, they accepted whatever Hydra did to them, and they came out on the other side.

Tony shared a look with Steve, then Sam, before nodding and stepping closer to them. The team tensed, but he simply held out a hand toward the twins and offered them each a room. Hydra was the enemy, just as much as Obidiah had been. And if they wanted revenge on their family, Tony knew exactly what prison Stane was rotting in. If they wanted revenge on the torture Hydra put them through, then they came to the right place.

If they never forgave Tony, that was fine. He could handle that. Plenty of other people hated him, after all. The twins looked at another in silence before Wanda reached out to take Tony’s hand. He knew the witch read his mind and a spike of fear shot through him at that. There was a lot to work through, and a lot to forgive already, but he knew plenty about hatred and revenge. He knew how much you could get lost in it. He knew how much it could torment you.

His brothers weren’t going to be happy about the new additions.

Sam put his gun away and rested a gentle hand on the twin’s shoulders. His soft voice eased them toward the living room where they could talk more, get out their anger in a better manner. Though not really a psychiatrist, Sam had a gift with getting the team to relax and open up about what was bothering them. He could even get Natasha to sit down and spill her guts if he tried.

As Sam sat between Wanda and Pietro, speaking softly to them about their fears and what others had done to disillusion them, Tony figured that the Falcon earned his place in this family. In his family.

*****

Bucky liked to leave what Tony called love letters to Steve. Whenever the team went to check out a rumored (or confirmed) Hydra base, they usually found it already decimated with a few of the dead Hydra soldiers formed into the shape of a star on the floor. Tony found it hilarious, Steve not so much. The men may have just been following orders, but some of the dead were young teens; Tony understood Steve’s want to save them despite who they worked for.

They played cat and mouse for months before the Avengers finally caught up to the Soldier. The base they showed up to hadn’t been destroyed yet, but from the echoes of gunfire it would be soon enough. Nobody hesitated before jumping into the fray, taking out or capturing any Hydra soldier they came across. Soon enough, Wanda had a dozen men under her control to question later as the rest of the team dove deeper into the facility.

Steve was the one who eventually found Bucky setting charges in the basement. He didn’t fight them, but he also didn’t agree to go back with them at Steve’s pleading. He just claimed that he had to destroy Hydra, destroy them before they could hurt anybody else. Tony wanted to tell him that their plans were the same, but Steve held up a hand to stop him.

They spoke softly to another and while Tony knew he could pick up the conversation if he wanted, he let them have their privacy. The rest of the team left the two of them there, making sure the rest of the facility was cleared before meeting back with Wanda and the jet. Tony waited on the comms, wanting both of the soldiers to come home.

Bucky was Steve’s family, after all. That made him family by default.

The message from Natasha came in shortly, letting him know that everyone was clear of the base. Tony cleared his throat to let the soldiers know, but he stopped before he could get the words out. The two of them were quiet and he could see on the security cameras that Steve’s eyes were narrowed in anger while Bucky’s faced toward the ground. He glanced between them a few times before realizing what was happening -- Bucky had no plans to ever return to Steve. And that would just not do.

Tony turned to Pietro and explained the situation as quickly as possible. Steve glanced over, having heard it through his comm, and his eyes widened. Tony shrugged (not that Cap could see him) as a blur blew past the shocked man in the warehouse. When Steve looked back, Bucky was gone, taken out of the room by the speedster. Steve looked directly at the cameras and gave Tony a smile before running out as fast as he could.

The facility exploded behind them as the jet took off. Natasha already had it in the air as Steve came running, figuring Bucky wouldn’t try to get out of it was already moving. Sure enough, the soldier was strapped into a seat and glaring at the twins. His glare only intensified as Steve jumped onto the closing rear door. Tony had to hold in a laugh at the smug look on Pietro’s face; having the kid around did have its uses.

And that’s what they were -- kids. But they were _his _kids, and they were definitely family. They had to be if they trusted Tony enough not to question when he brought a previously brain-washed assassin on board just because Steve missed him.

*****

Maximilian did not like to be called Max -- Tony found out that early, but he never cared to actually make sure he had the name right. Especially because the only time he heard from the eldest brother was when he came to yell at him about something. One day, he really wanted to introduce Max to Pepper and see how that conversation would go.

Not that the stuck-up prick would let it happen. The conversation started with the typical speech of keeping the family secret, of not letting anybody know. And how could he keep it if he constantly flew around with superheroes? No excuse would ever be good enough because Max always demanded what-if scenarios.

What if Tony got hurt enough to be in a hospital?

What if Tony passed out?

What if one of the team actually found out? (Not that Tony would ever tell him Natasha already knew.)

What if, what if, what if--

Tony was tired of it. He said as much to Max, nursing a glass of scotch as he did so, and Max just scowled at him. He threatened that one day Tony’s luck would run out. That one day something would happen that he couldn’t hide.

Tony tried to ignore him, but as Max left, he knew his brother was right. He would deal with the consequences when they showed up, but he also trusted his team. They didn’t share each other’s secrets. They didn’t stab each other in the back.

Tony had to trust that.

*****

Originally, Pepper was supposed to get on the plane and fly overseas to try and sell the idea of opening another branch of Stark Industries. However, their investors insisted on working with the man whose name was on letterheads and not the woman behind it. So Tony complained during the hour it took him to pack before he let Happy drive him to his private jet.

Steve offered to come with him as protection, but Tony waved him off. He had gone to plenty of these things before and didn’t need the protection of an Avenger.

Head coming out of the water and taking in a harsh, much-needed breath, Tony was rethinking the idea that protection wasn’t needed. The entire trip had been a trap and stupidly, he didn’t notice until it was too late. Meetings outside were rare, meetings off the beaten path rarer still, and he fell for it. As soon as Obadiah Stane stepped out of the car that pulled up, Tony knew he was in trouble.

He ended up in a dirty, dimly lit cave with his hands cuffed and a thin, old man for a roommate. Yinsen acted as though they were on a vacation when they were alone -- making a meal out of whatever gruel they were given, talking about his home, and reading several books that were stacked in the corner. Tony didn’t understand his antics, but he appreciated the normality all the same.

Their periods of false domestic life were interrupted by Stane and his cohorts. The first week or so, he had no idea what the man wanted. He assumed it was simply the torture, or maybe that nobody really seemed to care back home, but that wasn’t like Stane. The man always wanted something.

By the time Tony lost track of the days, he found out. Stane wanted a weapon that could take out not just the Avengers, but potentially half the population. Yinsen bowed his head at the demands, but Tony raised his chin in silence. He wasn’t going to give in to demands -- he never had before.

He lost a finger the first time he refused. Stane wasn’t holding the knife, but he stood back and insisted that he knew Tony would grow it back. The thought that Stane knew the truth sickened Tony and he did his best not to scream at the pain. Yinsen patched him up, and each time after, but Stane’s patience wasn’t going to last much longer. They both knew that, so they needed a plan. Tony needed a plan.

As he sat back on his cot, watching Yinsen prepare their next meal over the blue flame of the burner, it came to him. Stane wanted a weapon and Tony could pretend to give it to him. Stane might have worked with weapons his entire career, but he still had to read the name tag to see what he was looking at. That would make things easier.

Tony would build a weapon, but not for Stane. For himself.

*****

Did he have a family? He supposed he did. He had Rhodey’s strength of body and Pepper’s strength of mind. He had Natasha’s gentle smiles and Clint’s laughter during late-night movies. Steve’s unstoppable belief in him and Bruce’s quick mind. He had Thor’s confidence in the little things -- no matter how trivial they were.

He had Bucky’s quiet drive and fascination in everything he did that revolved around technology. He had Pietro’s quirkiness and Wanda’s steady belief that he could be better. He had Sam’s unwavering comfort and his half-siblings quiet support.

But were they really his? Maybe he could make them his. His heart had plenty of room -- enough that they each had a space completely in his life if they really wanted. Tony could do it, he could make it work; he was a genius. He forced a smile on his face and moved his chess piece forward on the half-broken board they were allowed to have. Checkmate.

“I will soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Again, massive thanks to my artist Mercia. You can find more on [tumblr](http://artmercia.tumblr.com) and [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/mercia.art/). Below are direct links to the art!
> 
> ["Do you have a family, Stark?"](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fiP_jqyLs1IsCCUfjboqWFWSg854J7tC)  
[Death of Maria Carbonell](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1zmnVeXz4vTeE56QURfRG1Da24tNndBbGxrNndTT0F1RW5v)  
[Breakfast Mornings](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1zmnVeXz4vTVUM3b01XRzg4azNDNHpVVlVCajZQUlhSdWhj)  
[Tony and Rhodey](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1zmnVeXz4vTdzluMFBZVVZNczlqY3lYMGNQb3BoV3VLOXdV)  
[Tony at Work](https://drive.google.com/open?id=18st5da_8X075PlXxLYZMCXhaN6FdT3LS)  
[Three Amigos](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1zmnVeXz4vTeXhYOVJvUE5HaEFnMkFjMU9FYlk4ZG1fZHBZ)  
[Family Gathering](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ub_iHhg7PINCZdcbj36e4MzwWd8u1LDT)  
["I will soon."](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gy3DLbAGIczPeJMNqviYOWBhmT-LDpDq)


End file.
